Li Ning troubles continue to force the female market to get out of trouble?

In the past six months or more, Li Ning Co., Ltd. has been in constant trouble, order quantity has fallen, rumors of closed stores have been flying, and price increase has been doubted for many times.

Recently, Li Ning Company used unregistered companies to produce "new dynamic" brand products and was suspected of false propaganda. Li Ning said that the company was named “Shanghai Xindong Sporting Goods Co., Ltd.” because it misunderstood the misunderstanding of the company’s “heart” as “new” on the clothes’s hangtag.

The trouble is not limited to this. Li Ning Company had to face the “labor pains” of the transition in the “weak crown” year.

It started brand remodeling last year, launched a new logo and a new slogan, and directly called international Nike, Adidas and other international companies in brand positioning. However, in December last year, Li Ning announced the results of the second quarter of 2011 trade fair order: the amount of orders in accordance with the wholesale shipping calculation decreased by about 6% over the same period in 2010.

"Now it is a painful period, presumably Li Ning has already been psychologically prepared." Zhu Xiaoming, a famous sports marketing expert and president of Taishi Sports Marketing Group commented.

Change the name to get rid of the name of the "cottage"

In 2010, Li Ning was founded 20 years ago.

On June 30 of this year, Li Ning personally led Li Yongbo, Wang Yifu and other representatives of the five national team athletes who won gold medals in world sports competitions several times and issued new logos and new slogans: The former “L” logo was replaced by “person”. Fonts, allegedly inspired by Li Ning original "Li Ning cross" gymnastics action.

Prof. Chen Gang, director of the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University and director of the advertising department, bluntly liked Li Ning’s new logo. “The original logo looks like a squirrel's tail and is slightly rounded. After the replacement, the lines are more neat, the profiles are more rigid, and they are more powerful and sporty. sense."

The slogan "everything is possible" was also replaced by "Make the change".

Li Ning’s “All Possible” slogan and related series of advertisements in 2002 have attracted widespread public resonance and received many praises from the industry; however, they were allegedly plagiarized because of the “never impossible” slogan of Adidas. And "cottage" can be described as mixed. This time the replacement slogan could not help but make people wonder: Li Ning companies want to figure out the name of the "cottage" and establish their own brand culture.

Xu Ruikun, manager of Li Ning Corporation and Foreign Public Relations Affairs Department, told the Times Weekly reporter that “The original slogan was creative and finalized earlier than Adidas, so there was no plagiarism at all. Perhaps it was because the other party’s promotion was more effective and social recognition. It was higher and left this impression for everyone."

“Rebranding is the result of careful consideration, which is mainly an active adjustment of the internationalization strategy.” Fang Shiwei, the marketing director of Li Ning, revealed to the reporter of the Times Weekly that a few years ago, at a French fashion conference, he first proposed this to Li Ning. Suggest. "Li always agrees. When he returns, he begins to study."

For the bid change, there are different voices within Li Ning Company, and there are even big differences, and different departments have different attitudes. "Shoe product design department is the most willing to accept the Logo change, because Logo can play a structural support role in the upper; and the sales system is the most objectionable because of concerns about distributors and users can not accept." At that time, Fang Shiwei faced the company president Zhang Zhiyong, "There is no need for everyone to change the logo, as long as two people can determine Li Ning and you."

What ultimately contributed to this move was the response from the market. Li Ning has conducted a related questionnaire survey on 10,000 users. "Lee finalized the board: As long as 30% of the users agree to implement the standard. Finally, the survey results show that: only 35% of the users oppose the bid change." Fang Shiwei said, "In this way, the rebranding was implemented."

Rising market price response

There is no doubt that the replacement of the slogan and logo indicates the reinvention of the Li Ning brand.

The new slogan "Make the change" is only available in English and its Chinese translation has not been promoted with the same force. As a result, Li Ning’s international ambition is also evident.

At the opening of the conference in June last year, the characters "Li Ning after 90" were particularly eye-catching. Li Ning’s goal is to target the main user group directly to the young generation “after 90”. Subsequently, advertisements with the theme of "post-90s" are frequently seen in the media. Can be "post-90s" Li Ning's initiative to show good is not enthusiastic, especially Lin Chi-ling endorsements Li Ning fitness series quite contradictory, "" after "90" Li Ning to use "70 after" Chi Ling sister endorsement, will it look aesthetic fatigue? ”

Focusing on the "post-90s" group, Li Ning has its own hardships. From 2006 to 2007, the Li Ning Company's survey report showed that the actual consumption population of the Li-Ning brand has a certain deviation from the target consumer group, that is, the overall age is relatively large, and the number of people in the 35-40 age group exceeds 50%.

“When Li Ning's brand is remodeled, it emphasizes youth and fashion. This is understandable. It can be directly positioned after 90 and it is incomprehensible. In fact, “post-90s” will not be the main body of users of Li Ning.” Zhu Xiaoming of Li Ning Company There are different opinions on this move. Li Ning has been established for 21 years and has formed a consumer group spanning multiple age groups, overemphasizing the age range of consumers, is not conducive to maintaining the original brand followers, "so it should not be outstanding to build specifically for the 90" .

In this regard, Xu Ruikun explained that this was a joke from the Li Ning conference when the conference was held. “At that time, Li said, Li Ning's brand was also founded in the 1990s, so it is also after 90.” She told the Times Weekly reporter several times. Reiterately, “We are not abandoning the “post-70s” and “post-80s”, but we only hope that the awareness of Li Ning can be improved after the “post-90s.” In terms of feelings, the company’s feelings for the old consumers are more profound.”

Li Ning, which started in the 1990s, quickly opened the market for Li Ning’s personal popularity. Since 1994, Li Ning has maintained the leading position in the Chinese sporting goods market. However, in 2003, Li Ning was first surpassed by Nike; in 2004, it was again left behind by Adidas.

Until 2009, Li Ning surpassed Adidas with a total sales volume of 8.387 billion yuan, regaining the position of "second child" in the domestic market, and also approaching Nike's sales scale.

In this situation, in 2010, Li Ning significantly increased its product prices three times: in April 2010, it was the first to announce a 11.1% price increase for footwear products and a 7.6% price increase for apparel products; in June 2010, it was announced again. The average selling price of footwear products increased by 7.8%, while that of apparel products increased by 17.9%. In September, the prices of footwear and apparel products increased again by 7% and 11% respectively. Zhang Zhiyong, president of Li Ning, once said publicly that he hopes that the price gap with Nike will become smaller and smaller, and it may be less than 10% in the future.

The purpose of the price increase does not appear to be consistent with Nike and Adidas in the positioning of product prices and user groups, directly and continuously improving the quality of user groups.

However, the market's response to Li Ning's product price increase has been rather lukewarm. Li Ning’s 2010 quarterly report showed that brand same-store sales growth was 4% in the third quarter of 2010, while same-store sales growth was 5% and 4.6% in the first quarter of 2010 and the first half of 2010, respectively.

Nike, on the other hand, does the opposite, and the low-priced $300 shoes launched in August last year is 25% lower than the current price. This price will undoubtedly attract the "post-90s" of chasing brands.

In Zhu Xiaoming's opinion, Li Ning still has a relatively large distance from Nike Adidas in terms of brand loyalty and awareness. Li Ning’s main user group is still concentrated in the second and third tier cities, and it is more sensitive to prices. Simply increasing the brand price through price increases may result in the loss of some original users.